The third.
5. False propositions of the third kind, are such as these; genus est ens, universale est ens, ens de ente prædicatur. For genus, and universale, and predicare, are names of names, and not of things. Also, number is infinite, is a false proposition; for no number can be infinite, but only the word number is then called an indefinite name when there is no determined number answering to it in the mind.
The fourth.
6. To the fourth kind belong such false propositions as these, an object is of such magnitude or figure as appears to the beholders; colour, light, sound, are in the object; and the like. For the same object appears sometimes greater, sometimes lesser, sometimes square, sometimes round, according to the diversity of the distance and medium; but the true magnitude and figure of the thing seen is always one and the same; so that the magnitude and figure which appears, is not the true magnitude and figure of the object, nor anything but phantasm; and therefore, in such propositions as these, the names of accidents are copulated with the names of phantasms.
The fifth.
7. Propositions are false in the fifth manner, when it is said that the definition is the essence of a thing; whiteness, or some other accident, is the genus, or universal. For definition is not the essence of any thing, but a speech signifying what we conceive of the essence thereof; and so also not whiteness itself, but the word whiteness, is a genus, or an universal name.
The sixth.
8. In the sixth manner they err, that say the idea of anything is universal; as if there could be in the mind an image of a man, which were not the image of some one man, but a man simply, which is impossible; for every idea is one, and of one thing; but they are deceived in this, that they put the name of the thing for the idea thereof.
The seventh.
9. They err in the seventh manner, that make this distinction between things that have being, that some of them exist by themselves, others by accident; namely, because Socrates is a man is a necessary proposition, and Socrates is a musician a contingent proposition, therefore they say some things exist necessarily or by themselves, others contingently or by accident; whereby, seeing necessary, contingent, by itself, by accident, are not names of things, but of propositions, they that say any thing that has being, exists by accident, copulate the name of a proposition with the name of a thing. In the same manner also, they err, which place some ideas in the understanding, others in the fancy; as if from the understanding of this proposition, man is a living creature, we had one idea or image of a man derived from sense to the memory, and another to the understanding; wherein that which deceives them is this, that they think one idea should be answerable to a name, another to a proposition, which is false; for proposition signifies only the order of those things one after another, which we observe in the same idea of man; so that this proposition, man is a living creature raises but one idea in us, though in that idea we consider that first, for which he is called man, and next that, for which he is called living creature. The falsities of propositions in all these several manners, is to be discovered by the definitions of the copulated names.